Almost £400,000 was paid out in compensation last year to schoolteachers who were injured after being attacked by violent students.

A survey of councils uncovered a total of 26 payouts to teaching staff last year including one case in Nottingham where a teacher was paid £60,000 for the injuries they suffered.

In Staffordshire a teaching assistant was paid £2,850 compensation after suffering face and teeth injuries after being attacked by a pupil.

In Hillingdon, London, a student with learning difficulties threw a ball of clay in the classroom which hit and injured the teacher.

The compensation case was eventually settled by the council for £14,085.

The figures from local councils reveal how teachers are now claiming compensation for the sometimes horrific attacks they have to endure from pupils.

Read more: Worrying figures reveal record number of kids are taking knives to school

Details of the incidents reveal sometimes they set upon by students who often use classroom furniture and equipment during the attack.

Often teaching staff suffer injuries when they step in to restrain violent children who have lost their temper or are trying to attack other children.

The revelation of the payouts comes after a number of high profile cases where students have launched vicious assaults on teachers.

In November 2014 Will Cornick was jailed for a minimum of 20 years after he stabbed teacher Ann Maguire, 61, to death at their school in Leeds.

Cornick, who was 15 at the time of the attack, launched the assault with an eight-inch long kitchen knife in front of a horrified class of students.

And in June last year a 14-year-old boy was jailed for launching a racist knife attack on supply teacher Vincent Uzomah, 50, at a school in Bradford.

The court heard the pair clashed after Mr Uzomah attempted to confiscate a mobile phone from the teenager.

The disclosure of the payouts comes as official figures reveal there were almost 20,000 separate incidents of schoolchildren being suspended or expelled for attacking teachers in the last school year.

Other compensation cases settled by councils in the last year include: Greenwich Council, in London, admitted paying a teaching assistant £13,500 after they were hurt trying to restrain an out-of-control child.

In Sheffield the council agreed to pay £13,000 to a teacher who was injured in an attack by a pupil.

A teaching assistant in Wandsworth, London, settled a case for 27,705 in compensation after being injured by a chair that had been thrown by a violent student.

In Bexley, London, a teaching assistant was paid £22,362 after being hit in the head by a door which had been kicked by a pupil.